In the food industry, it is common to package food in sealed trays, in particular meat and poultry products. When packaging such food into trays in batches, it is well known in the art to use a batching system, which enables operators to pack fixed weight batches of product into trays. The trays can then be sealed and labelled before being transported to the desired outlet, such as a supermarket.
Conventionally, batches of weighed product, for example a particular weight of chicken legs, are transferred from a weigher to conveyor system with arms that are timed to transfer the batches from the conveyor into individual filling stations. Each filling station typically comprises a holding tray and a pneumatically driven presentation tray.
Operators are positioned along a stationary batching table adjacent the conveyor system; one operator for each filling station. Product is presented immediately in front of an operator on the pneumatically driven tray. The operator picks the product and arranges it neatly on the tray. The operator then places the packed tray on to a secondary conveyor that transfers the tray to a tray sealing or overwrapping machine. At the same time the operator places the filled tray on the secondary conveyor, they press a button and the batch held in the holding hopper is transferred to the pneumatic tray presented to the operator as before. In other systems, the timing of batches being presented to the operators is predetermined and the operators work at a set rate dictated by the tray timing.
The system is designed to run in a semi-automatic or automatic manner, such that when the weigher is given signals to provide batches of product, the system automatically distributes the product into the holding hoppers of the filling stations.
Typically the type of weigher used is a “multihead” weigher, which is equipped with multiple weighing hoppers equipped with software enabling multiple target weights to be achieved, together with an error system that automatically sends product not fulfilling the weight criteria (for example a selection of chicken legs with different weights such that the desired weight cannot be obtained) to a “bulk” station, where the product is either recycled and attempted to be weighed again, or sent to be packaged as “bulk”.
Such a batching system is typically constructed in a linear fashion and requires a lot of space on the production floor. This means that there are high costs both in the manufacturing of the system and the floor space required. Further, due to the linear nature of the batching table and the operator positioning, the batches take longer to move along the conveyor system to an operator standing further away from the weigher than an operator standing closer to the weigher, which can lead to complicated timing requirements and low efficiency.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,625,961 describes an example of a bagging system in which bags are secured beneath vertical delivery chutes into which foodstuffs are supplied from a weighing system, the delivery chutes being arranged about a central axis. When filled, the bags are then placed onto a conveyor for delivery elsewhere. This system is not suitable for achieving tray filling since operators cannot control the supply of foodstuffs into the packages.